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Journalist goes without charge after military interrogation

CAIRO: The Arab Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) reported Wednesday that journalist Abdel Khaleq Farouq was allowed to go without charge but warned not to [broach] any subjects concerning the military establishment without first consulting the authorities concerned. Farouq was summoned for interrogation by the military public prosecutor on Tuesday in connection with a …

CAIRO: The Arab Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) reported Wednesday that journalist Abdel Khaleq Farouq was allowed to go without charge but warned not to [broach] any subjects concerning the military establishment without first consulting the authorities concerned.

Farouq was summoned for interrogation by the military public prosecutor on Tuesday in connection with a book he published titled Charge Sheet.

The book is a compilation of Farouq s articles published in Egyptian and Arab newspapers. Some of the topics tackled in the book include corruption in the economic sector and a comparison of the amount spent on government propaganda with that of the funding allocated to education and public sector employee wages.

The book also contains a chapter titled How do military officers control the Civil Services Authority?

Gamal Eid told Daily News Egypt on Monday that this may explain why Farouq was summoned by a military body but stressed that the book in no way infringes military secrets laws.

According to the ANHRI statement, Farouq was interrogated for two and a half hours. It became clear during the interrogation that State Security Investigations – Egypt’s political police – were behind the complaint against Abdel Khaleq Farouq, the ANHRI statement reads.

This incitement against a writer and sedition between an opinion writer and the armed forces is a quantum leap in the role of this political regime, it continues.

According to the statement, Farouq – who is said to be baffled but unconcerned by the interrogation – has responded by putting a copy of Charge Sheet and all his other works online.

The Egyptian government should have examined the opinions and analyses presented in the book, ANHRI director Gamal Eid is quoted as saying in the statement. It instead acted with a policeman mentality by taking a cudgel to freedom of thought and opinion.